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8:55 a.m. - Wednesday, May. 12, 2004
Joyce.
I first met Joyce almost a year ago.

She and her family were living at the Shiva, a filthy little motel located on South 9th Street in Modesto. Let me tell you, this place is a kind of hell, and there are several more like it. Terrible living conditions, tiny rooms, and an evil man presiding over it all who charges up to $1400 a month to live in his dirty little kingdom. But enough about that. Suffice to say, it is no place for an innocent 14-year-old girl like Joyce to be living.

When we first met Joyce, she had just gotten some new shoes and was telling us what a good runner (or "wunner", as her speech impediment made her say) she was. She was 14, but seemed to have the innocence of someone much younger. In the same conversation, she told us how some people ask her if she's a stripper. While emotionally still very innocent, she might be able to pass for being 17 or 18. Living where she was living, she had obviously been approached by Low Men.

It really tore up my heart to see such a sweet girl living in such a dark place. We tried a couple of times to get her to come out to our youth group, but her parents didn't really know us, and it's no easy task to gain trust on South 9th Street. So we simply kept coming every Friday; sometimes with bread, sometimes with a meal. We kept running into her, and kept getting to know one another a little better. We also got to know her parents, Rosemary and John, a little better.

One Friday we talked to Rosemary for a while, or rather let her talk to us. She told us how desperately she wanted to get her family out of there. She told us that being propositioned with her daughter was simply too much. She told us that she'd been clean for several months now, and I could tell that she really wanted to be the mother that her family needed. She and John earned a few dollars a day by cleaning rooms for Jack, the landlord. They made about $2.50 per room.

Finally, on Good Friday, John and Rosemary expressed interest in Joyce coming to our church. So Easter Sunday morning, I picked up Joyce and brought her to New Hope. She absolutely loved it. She sang as loud as she could, and after the service she and Marge (our pianist) and a couple of other girls were gathered around the piano singing.

She came to our youth group the following Tuesday and really connected with a couple of girls. We took the group out again on the following Saturday for a hike. I can't tell you how beautiful it was to see Joyce running through green grass and jumping over clear water. So far away from the Shiva motel. Absolutely beautiful.

It was around this time, however, that John and Rosemary told us about Rosemary's oldest boy out in Idaho. He was in the hospital for some kind of internal injury, and she desperately wanted to go see him.

I felt very torn. On the one hand, I would love to see them get out of that damned motel, and they could probably afford to be in a slightly better situation if they were far away from Modesto. On the other hand, we had just started to connect with Joyce in a meaningful way. It would be sad to see her go. We prayed together, there in the parking lot of the Shiva Motel. John, Rosemary, Joyce, her brother Jay, our friend Josh, Chris and me.

Sunday morning, Joyce came to church again. She shared that she might be leaving for Idaho, and Pastor Ken brought her up to the front and prayed with her. She cried.

They weren't sure when they'd be able to leave for Idaho, because of their financial situation. I half expected that they wouldn't even go. However, I saw Joyce again the following week when I went to pick her up for church. She couldn't come, however, because she was babysitting for another tenant. They were still planning on leaving. I told her that we loved her, and that we'd be praying for her.

It was after that when the Whitlers and I left for Canada. When we returned, we learned that Joyce and her family were gone. We haven't heard from them, so I'm hoping that no news is good news.

Again, it feels bittersweet. I know that she's probably in a slightly better, though far from perfect, situation. But we were just getting to know her, and she was really loving our church, our youth group, and our friendship. Part of what I feel is powerlessness. Not that I was able to do very much to change her situation when she was here, but I was at least able to offer my friendship. Now we have no way of contacting her, and I just have to trust that God has his hand on her.

Joyce is a beautiful girl, and full of light. May that light never fade. May it grow brighter. Dear God, bless Joyce.

 

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